Project: Papa’s Dodge, stage one.

[Draenor]

Turned out good.

 

[Lonesome7.3]

Just another step on the proccess completed.

 

[The DarkNight]

man I am so glad to see some one who knows what their truck is, I get a ton of customers that come in looking for parts and they don't know if theyre old dodge is a d150 or a d200 or so on, its refreshing to see someone who knows what they are talking about,,,,cheers!

 

[Lonesome7.3]

I know what you mean. It gets annoying when I try to get parts.

 

[Lonesome7.3]

Thesteering coupler turned out to be more complicated than I thought it would be.The big problem was only one part in the rebuild kit would work. The rubberpiece is all I could use, the rest was worthless. Then, what I thought was threadedstuds turned out not to be. They went through all the pieces and were crushedon the end like a rivet. I had to use a Dremel to cut away the excess so I couldremove them. After I got it apart I soaked the parts in some degreaser andcleaned them up. Once I realized the other parts in the kit were no good to meI had to come up with a way to reuse the studs I grinded. I found some shortbolds and welded them onto the ends of the studs I cut off. I ground them smooth, cut the bolt heads off,ground them down to the appropriate length and ran a die over them. I have aset of sockets with what looks like large needle bearings inside of them. Theyare for gripping rounded fasteners. I have had them for a long time and I thinkthis is the first time they were useful. I dug out some really old square nutsthat I know have been in my dad’s bolt bin since I was a kid. They wereimperfect so I used a file to smooth them to matching the contour of the couplingbase. It was tough to get all the parts to go back together with that new pieceof rubber. I found liberal amounts of lube can work some magic. Once assembledI used the Dremel again with a grinding stone to clearance on square nut tomake room for a socket to grip the bolt that goes though the base clamp. Thereyou go, a close to new steering coupling

 

[Lonesome7.3]

By the way, never weld while wearing an Under ArmourT-shirt. My damn nipple still hurts.

 

[Lonesome7.3]

Got the rest of the steering knocked out. I set the gear boxup where I could clean it and look for leaks. I planned to replace the shaftseals but they looked great and had no signs of leaks. Next I mocked up thegear box reinforcement bracket. I do not know what year truck it came from, butall I had to do was drill two holes for it to fit. After that is was just amatter of bolting everything in place. I found another one of those old squarenuts, this time in 7/16 14. I love those things. I used it on the bracketextension bolt. I cleaned up the tierods and popped them in and it all seems to work well. After that I startedrunning the brake lines.
Tomorrow I will double check all the bolts andgrease all the fitting

 

[Lonesome7.3]

Finally started feeling better so I tried to make up forlost time today. I tightened and torque all the fasteners. I greased everythingthat needed it and a few that didn’t. The brake lines are a bit trickier than I thought but they are comingtogether. The front hoses are perplexing me at the moment. I got the rear up onjack stands so I can address a list of issues back there. I saturated everythingwith degreaser and hosed it off thoroughly. I even evicted the eco system thatstarted up while the truck has been sitting I will get into more detail aboutthe rear end mods and repairs later on.

 

[dirtyoldman]

Getting closer

 

[OldCracker29]

You're definitely putting a lot of work into this project.